For part 3 in our series, the team at Speed UTV get into the driveline specifics. More amazing features and benefits, here are our thoughts and analysis. We continue to be impressed be the thoughtful engineering from Robby Gordon and the team, now let’s see some video of these prototypes in action! I thought Robby did a great explaining real life situations and experiences, along with engineering specifics to explain the features they are building into this new SxS.

Transcription:

Welcome back everybody Nicholson Chupacabra off-road thanks for tuning in to part three of the speed UTV video breakdown where we’ve been watching the live weekly videos that Robbie Gordon the team of Speed have been putting out breaking him down and trying to figure out is this new side by side the game-changer that we’re hoping it will be so if you haven’t seen our previous videos already 1 & 2 will be linked below in the description and there was the third live video that they did last week which we didn’t make a video on and there were a couple little points I wanted to bring up and address before we get into this week’s presentation which was about the transmission and drive line so like I mentioned previously Robby Gordon brought up a full cab and closure option for the speed UTV well that’s going to be released next summer and Robbie brought it up that yes if you do purchase a speed UTV this year you can adapt and upgrade it but unfortunately he said that you’re better off starting basically with a whole new vehicle because you have to purchase the cab enclosure you have to purchase doors with rolling up windows and you’re gonna have to also change out the radiator relocated to the front so he mentioned this cost is gonna be anywhere from 6 to 8 thousand dollars which is why he mentioned you’re better off waiting for a different version which will come with the cabin closure a little bit more difficult and I thought it would be as a potential customer I would be hopeful to buy this one this year and then upgrade in the future if I wanted to I’m not overly sticker shock by the price that does make sense and sound reasonable based on what you would be getting but relocating the radiator sounds more difficult and we’ll see how that shakes down once these things hit the ground so one more point that Robbie brought up last week is he addressed a question that most of us have was hey how much product testing has been done or will be done before this thing releases in November Robbie brought up to 5 years of testing they’ve been doing essentially five years ago once he designed the DoubleX and all the racing they’ve done most recently at the mint 400 this year Dakar and so on and he also mentioned that there are several prototypes is running around with completed driveline components out in parker so it’s good to know that Robbie let’s see some footage of those things running around alright so moving on to this week’s presentation yep you saw the title this CVT transmission is going to have three gears so really cool feature and not only did he mention that but he mentioned that he’s working with two titans in the awkward industry for building high-performance transmissions Albin’s and Weddell and use their help an input when designing this new system so basically all of us that own side by side to the CVT would be excited we’d all love to have it third gear this makes a lot of sense he mentioned being in Baja going down fast roads or transit sections would definitely be better for a fuel economy keep the vehicle down in the lower rpms it’s a win-win and yeah bet 99.9% of all CVT owners would love to have a third gear so awesome feature so this week Robbie gets really technical on the breakdown video and I really think it’s a good watch especially if you’re like me someone who doesn’t have an engineering background and I’m not overly technical I rebuilt a few dirtbike top ends too and four-stroke in my day but he does a really good job of breaking down the mechanics behind what’s going on in a way that’s easy to understand or at least I felt that way for me well he breaks down a transmission feature which he says is probably the coolest part of the entire gearbox and that is an industry exclusive torque limiting clutch which is built-in that he explains this feature can prevent belt and gearbox failures so he does a great job of explaining why he talks about pounding hoops in San Felipe and why this feature is so cool why it’s gonna help with the longevity of not only the gearbox but belts so I love that he’s transparent he says look guys we’re gonna need to work on this all summer because it’s definitely a calibration that we need to make sure is accurate before this thing rolls off the showroom floor so if you have a razor on x3 one thing it’s a bummer is if you want to go between low and high gear you’ve got to come to a complete stop and from how Robbie is describing it it makes it sounds like you will be able to shift on the fly it would make sense going from high to the cruise gear or from second to third you’re probably already going to be going 40 miles an hour so I’m just gonna show you a clip of how Robbie breaks it down and what he says about it we believe that we’ll be able to do shift on the fly it’s 100% right now so my CVT you could put it into high gear and drive away from high gear or overdrive you could pop into middle gear second or first driveway I guarantee you’ll be able to that and I could promise you more working on on a ship without a program for this UTV three-speed so after watching that it’s hard to do some 100% but that’s what he means that you can shift on the fly because he does mention a shift without lift program that they’re working on we’ll wait to see what happens but it does sound like you will be able to go from high second to third first a second while you’re moving which is a really really cool feature so speaking of shifting on the fly let’s talk about the front differential which also is going to have a feature to shift on the fly from four-wheel drive to a complete Locker now he dis mentioned this locker is designed for low speed rock crawling mud situations he does say that it’ll push like a dump truck but yes you’ll have all four wheels locked up awesome if you want to go to Moab do some legit rock crawling sounds like it’s gonna work really well one other nice addition of the front diff is it’s also going to have a torque limiting clutch as Robby calls it to prevent big spikes from causing any catastrophic failures so some more engineering the Robbie gets into which is a really cool point that’s worth bringing up he talks about their patented CV locking mechanism so Robbie mentioned that this is originally designed he wanted to put in the double X but was unable to and basically this system plunges on the ball bearings not on the splines which is what Robbie says leads to the speed having almost no track change throughout the 25 inches of will travel when you add this up with the geometry of the suspension this leads to the tire staying in the same place and most likely leads to much better handling and he says this is a big advantage compared to any other competitor in the side-by-side industry one more quick note tires lobule have been asking which tires is it going to come with he said that there’s a 75% chance that they will be speed developed tires and he gives us a little sneak peek not a hundred percent but it does give us a little look of what they might look like should speed design their own tire so that’s gonna do it for this week guys lots of exciting information in the form of cool features more validation that they have been testing reiterated they’ve had years of racing testing experience and we all know racing is about as hard as you can be on these things so sound they really just need to keep working hard want to see some video these part of the types in action the CAD drawings are cool but we all want a little bit more I do think I have no problem selling these first 500 units and yeah like he said you know at this point they’ve got one shot to really prove it come out with a really reliable vehicle right out of the gate and he’s like Babe Ruth he’s calling his shots so so stick with us and we’ll have all the latest updates as they come about one thing I know for sure if you’re not a believer or if you’re a hater you just don’t think this thing is gonna see the light of day deep down you really want this thing to come out and be badass because it’s gonna make it better for all of us the industry competition is great it’s gonna force the hand of the other OEM to step it up so fingers crossed for you guys I hope you do it I’m excited I might be a potential customer myself thanks for watching if you guys like the content please like and subscribe and we’ll see you next time.